The way to a landowner's heart was to tax gently.

Foreign policy often involved nothing more than the decision whom to make war upon.

The cornerstone of the Roman legionnaires' astonishing fighting spirit can be attributed to their training.

The factor that made him so powerful was also his greatest liability.

With ancient history writers most immediately in view, the author indicates "tendency to look to the virtues and vices of individuals when seeking causes.

He was a stylist, not a thinker. He spent time trying to say things in as complicated a way as possible.

Author describes one monarch's impressive table but conveys a contemporary's observation, "the weightiest thing at dinner was the conversation".

Never base motivation or fear, entirely.

Reality confounds image.

[L]anguage functions best when we mediate between the descriptive and prescriptive influences, changing the rules to better suit some things, but sticking to them for others.

The noise around me blurs, and all I can focus on is his lips and breath and presence.

Critics in New York are made by their dislikes, not by their enthusiasms.

The Godhead is never an object of its own knowledge. Just as a knife doesn't cut itself, fire doesn't burn itself, light doesn't illuminate itself. It's always an endless mystery to itself.

Art is the perpetual motion of illusion. The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do? What else can you do for any one but inspire them?

The Hall of Fame has strong people.

If all the fools in this world should die, lordly God how lonely I should be.

"You marked the minutes," the old man said. "But did you use them wisely? To be still? To cherish? To be grateful? To lift and be lifted?"

The mailman doesn't deliver on Sundays.

If the world knew how to use freedom without abusing it, tyranny would not exist.